India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) speaks with Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese as they stand in front of the Sydney Opera House on Wednesday — AFP SYDNEY, May 24 (BBC): India and Australia have announced a migration deal as they aim to strengthen their economic cooperation. The announcement came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his counterpart Anthony Albanese in Sydney on Wednesday.
The deal aims to "promote the two-way mobility of students, graduates, academic researchers and business people". They also discussed regional security amid rising tensions in the region.
India and Australia are part of the four-member Quad group, which also includes Japan and the US. A scheduled meeting of the group in Sydney was cancelled last week after US President Joe Biden had to return to Washington for debt ceiling talks.
Mr Modi, however, continued his planned visit to Sydney after attending the G7 summit in Japan and travelling to Papua New Guinea. This is Mr Modi's first visit to Australia since 2014, and comes two months after Mr Albanese visited India in March.
Negotiations for the migration agreement had been going on for a couple of years. Australia already has a significant number of people who have migrated from India - census data shows that of more than a million people who moved to Australia since 2016, almost a quarter were from India.
According to a statement, the finalised migration agreement will also lead to the creation of a new scheme called MATES (Mobility Arrangement for Talented Early Professionals Scheme), which has been "specifically created for India".
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